


true affection (the blow)

by gayerthanyourmom



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayerthanyourmom/pseuds/gayerthanyourmom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kelley tries to put herself back together after Hope chooses Jeremy over her. The struggle is harder then she expected it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Secrets. Elevator. Thunder

It is hard.

It is hard for Kelley to smile and act happy when she is breaking down from the inside out. But she has to, she has to support her friend.

Her friend. Her ex lover. Her ex girlfriend. Her friend.

She grins and greets the few teammates that actually made the trip out to the wedding. Jill gives her a tight squeeze and tells her she looks fabulous, which is completely true. Kelley knows that if you are ever going to go to an ex’s wedding, you have to dress your best. Make them know what they missed out on.

Reminding her of who she chose to let go. Of choosing him over her.

The music starts to play, snapping Kelley out of her thoughts, signifying that the wedding procession is about to begin. She takes her seat next to Jill and turns with everyone to look at Hope.

_Wow, she looks absolutely stunning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this happy._

Kelley takes a deep breathe, gripping her clutch.

_I could have made her this happy. I could have, I could have. Could I really?_

She wipes away an escaping tear, hoping that the people around her think she’s crying out of joy and not despair.

“I do,” the man that stole Hope away from Kelley says. The man she wished she could hate. The man that was exactly what Hope needed, the man that was where Kelley wants to be. Where she should be.

Hope looks around the crowd, and meets Kelley’s eyes. She swallows hard, her smile dropping a little bit.  She doesn’t look as happy as Kelley had thought she did. She looks stressed.

“I do.”

…

Kelley stays for the first part of the reception.  She only stays long enough to get a drink and call a cab. Then she’s gone.

She holds it together until she gets back to the hotel. Fumbling with the keys, she barely holds in her tears.

Then all hell breaks loose.  Tears flood down her face and snot starts to run out of her nose.

She kicks her heels off, quite violently, leaving a mark on the hotel wall. Unzips her dress and jumps into the shower.

The water is as hot as it can be, making her skin red and itchy. It burns off all the ruined memories, cleansing her of the thoughts of Hope. Of Hope laughing at something embarrassing she said, of Hope holding onto Kelley while she sleeps as if she was scared she wouldn’t be there when she woke up. Of Hope breaking down her walls and acting childish with Kelley.

_…_

_Kelley was playing tag with Riley and Reese, zipping around the hotel lobby, barely avoiding collisions with random bystanders.  She laughed out of pure joy and happiness._

_Riley was about to catch up with her to tag her but Kelley quickly dove behind Hope, using her as a human shield._

_Hope only complained a little bit; she secretly loved seeing Kelley act childish. Her walls came completely down, letting her inner child out._

_She did complain, however, when Riley decided to tag Hope and make her part of the game. She turned around to face Kelley and started to protest but it was too late. Kelley had taken off chanting, “You can’t catch me, you can’t catch me.”_

_That was all the challenge that Hope needed, and Kelley knew that. Hope doesn’t lose.  Ever. And this time was no different._

_It only took about 20 seconds until she caught up with Kelley, tackling her to the ground instead of just tagging her. They were both cackling, giddy from the game of cat and mouse._

_They rolled over to face each other and Kelley just admired Hope like this. Seeing the joy. The unguarded smile, the shining eyes._

_Hope noticed Kelley watching her and gently cupped her face, shifting her head closer._

_The moment broke when Riley and Reese jump on top of them, insisting on playing another game._

…

Her alarm goes off at 8 am and she is out of the hotel and on the way to the airport by 8:20. She needs to get as far away from this place as possible.

A long plane ride is just what she needs to sort out her thoughts, and figure out what she has to do to start putting herself back together.

She needs to work out, needs to get out to meet new people, she needs the support of her friends.

She needs to go to the bathroom because she thinks she’s going barf.

…

She gets home and tries to start to rebuild herself. Kelley goes to the gym at least once a day; she tries to keep herself busy all the time. Maybe hanging out with Alex and Tobin or playing some pick up at the closet park.

Anything that stops her from thinking about Hope.

Anything to help her put herself back together again.

But there are a lot of setbacks.

…

Kelley wakes up to a new message.

From Hope.

She takes a shaky breath before putting in her passcode. The one that spells Hope. 4673. The one that she kept, convincing herself that she is used to it by now that it doesn’t mean anything.

But it does.

She opens the text.

2:35am Hope – I miss you.

“Shit. Shit shit shit.” Kelley turns her phone off and put it in the bottom dresser drawer.

“Now is not the time for this. I can’t deal with this right now,” she mumbles to herself as she grabs her sports bag and jams her feet into her Nikes. Kelley decides that now is the time to go to the gym and push herself past her breaking point, her physical breaking point. She is already frighteningly close to the emotional one.

With a granola bar in her left hand, she starts her car and drives to the nearest gym. Before pulling in she decides that that gym is too close to her house. To the drawer that holds the phone. That receives that text. She drives to the gym in the next town.

She doesn’t care if she’s wasting gas or if she’s going to have to drive 45 minutes to get home. She only cares about the distance. The one she’s been working so hard to create.

…

Sweat drips down her face. Actually, pretty much down her whole body.  It makes her skin gleam in the lights of the weight room. Lights that she realizes were not on when she first got to the gym.

Kelley looks out the window and saw that it was starting to get dark.  
“Shit.” Her watch reads 6:32.

 _Have I really been here that long?_ Kelley questions as she sits down on one of the benches, deciding she should call it a day. Her stomach rumbles loudly in agreement.

She runs through the workouts:

            an hour on the lower body

            an hour on the middle body

            two hours on the upper body

            4 mile run

            yoga stretch down

            25 sets of sprints

 _Shit, I did a lot today. I don’t know how I did that –_ She stops herself mid thought. _Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Dammit._

She knows that things are never that easy; that her emotions, as strong as hers were, won’t just go away.

Walking to her car, she reaches into her pocket to text Tobin and Alex to ask if they want to go out tonight.  Then she remembers that she doesn’t have her phone, and that she doesn’t want to have her phone with her for a while.

This isn’t the first time that Hope has contacted her since the wedding. Kelley’s almost sure that every time Hope gets wasted she texts or calls Kelley. Coming to this conclusion wasn’t hard because it’s always very late and the words in the text are never spelled completely right.

Hope doesn’t like to spell words wrong, or have what she is saying be incoherent. She likes precision and being to the point with her information. At least that’s what the Hope she knew was like.

The new Hope? well, she has no idea.

…

In the driveway, Kelley becomes aware that Tobin and Alex will be wondering where she has been all day and why she hasn’t been answering her phone.

She unlocks the door and enters to her friends relaxing in the living room watching a football game, completely unaware that she was there.

“Um, hey guys.” She drops her sports bag on the floor and flops down onto the recliner chair adjacent to couch.

The two of them jump, startled.

“Hey Kell, where have you been?  We got up to go for a run at 7 and went to see if you wanted to come but you weren’t in your room and your car was gone.” Alex sits up while she’s saying this, separating herself from the warm arm Tobin slung around her body.

 _Hm, interesting_. She thought about it before explaining and decides to lie about what happened, “I had a bad dream last night and woke up really creeped out so I decided to go train. I must’ve lost track of time while I was there because before I knew it, it was dark outside.”

“You went to the gym?  We didn’t see you there. Tobin and I went to lift after lunch, around noon.” Alex was suspicious about Kelley’s story. She knew her well enough to know something wasn’t right. And Kelley knew she knew.

“I went to the far gym. I wanted a bit of a drive to clear my head. If you tried to call me my phone died on the way there and I didn’t bring a charger. If we’re done here, I’m going to go shower.” Kelley grabbed her bag off the floor and left the room.

_Shit, they know something’s up._

…

“Where are you going?” Alex walks into Kelley’s room while she finishes applying her make up.

“Out.”

“Out?  Do you have a hot date or something? Because I haven’t seen you try this hard since Hope’s wedding.” That hit a nerve.  Alex noticed Kelley tense up, quickly getting ready to leave.

“Look I’m gonna go to the bar Lex, I’ll see you.”

“Okay don’t forget your – “

The front door slams shut.

“- phone.”

…

Kelley wakes up next to something or someone tall, blonde, and snoring. She gets out of the bed as quietly as possible making sure not to wake up Anna or Alice or whatever her name was.

Throwing her clothes on,, she heads outside to grab a cab and prepare for whatever Alex is about to yell at her for.


	2. Chapter 2

She gets the email and she’s torn. She wants to be ecstatic because she got called up again. But so did Hope. “Hope Evans” is on the list.

This makes it all too real for Kelley; she thought she had started to move on, get over all of this.

Until now. But she stamps on a smile and asked Tobin if she got the email yet, goes through the needed celebration & excitement, and packs up her bag.

Once all that is done, the waiting begins. She had to wait a day for her plane to leave. Kelley has no control over her thoughts; all she knows is that she is going to see Hope again.

And she has no fucking idea what she is going to do.

…

_When she got her camp email the first thing Kelley did was call up Hope. Hope even acted excited that they were going to see each other soon – which she wouldn’t normally do around anyone._

_Yet Kelley and Hope’s relationship was different. Hope got to act like a little kid around Kelley, while Kelley got to act like an adult around Hope. Something that neither of them got to do often._

_But now, they got to squeal over the phone about how excited they were to see each other and how they couldn’t wait for camp to start._

…

Her flight boards in 10 minutes and then it’s only 3 hours until she gets to the hotel. Her leg is bouncing up and down: not only from her nervous anticipation, but also because she is happy to see all of her friends again.

It has been too long, and Kelley has stopped trying to keep in touch. It makes her feel even more alone. She has isolated herself so she has no one to talk to or tell her secrets to.

Kelley built a wall that she never had before, and now she doesn’t trust her friends as much because her closest friend abandoned her.

…

Arriving at camp is incredibly stressful for Kelley. She tries to stick to herself without getting noticed, but obviously that doesn’t work out. If she didn’t want people to notice her she would have to act like her normal self – being loud and obnoxious so people would ignore her.

Alex and Tobin throw questioning looks her way while Kelley goes to retrieve her room key.  The roommate’s list says that she is rooming with Alex and she accidently notices that Hope happens to be rooming with Pinoe. Just down the hall.

Kelley shakes her head and tells herself to refocus. This camp is for soccer, and only soccer. She needs to get ready for practice.

…

Kelley has never played this well. Not even during the Olympics. Her teammates are starting to take notice and some are coming up to talk to her about it. Tom even told her that if she keeps this up she should be very confident about her position on the team in the future.

She takes all of this with grace and packs it away to be happy about another time, because right now she just needs to get through camp. One day at a time. One practice at a time.

She keeps pushing herself, using the pain of practice on the field to make her feel something other than the emptiness she feels off of it.

The only thing that makes it a little bit easier is the fact that Hope isn’t doing well.  She has stuck to herself more than usual, which Kelley thought was impossible because Hope was an extremely private person to begin with.

Yet it happened. Hope doesn’t come to any optional team hangouts, nor was she seen reading in the lobby as per usual.

The team just thinks that this was the how the newly-married-Hope acted. That now that she has settled down, things have changed.

But Kelley knows differently. Hope won’t change for anyone, Kelley knows that from experience. That is Hopes’ main principle. She is who she is, and if someone couldn’t deal with it, they could leave.

That is Kelley’s first clue that Hope is not as happy as she wants people believe.

The other clue: that Hope is off her game. She isn’t playing well at all. She lets herself get distracted and into her own head, breaking her focus. This isn’t like Hope at all, so almost everyone on the team picks up on it.

Abby decides that someone needed to step in, to figure out what’s going on with her.

“Kelley, can you – “

“No.” Kelley shuts her locker and grabs her bag, “You know that Hope and I haven’t talked since the wedding. Why don’t you go and talk to her?”

She walks away quickly, hoping that Abby won’t try to follow her, but it’s Abby. She catches up with her just as she is about to get on the bus back to the hotel.

“Look, just try to talk to her. For the team?” It sounds like a plea. Kelley is always a pushover.

“Fine, but I don’t promise anything.”

…

Hope is rooming with Megan, which is a good and bad thing. It’s good because she’ll let Kelley in to talk to Hope alone without question.

It’s bad because when she leaves, she yells “Get it!” before the door slams shut.

She cringes, only slightly, and tries to hide it from Hope.

Hope notices.

“Hey Abby asked me – “

“I’ll stop you there. I don’t want you to check up on me. I want you to talk to me.” Hope’s voice is steady as usual but Kelley is shaking.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

She turns and leaves without a backward glance.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t allow herself to lean on the closed door and take a breath.

Facing Hope was harder than she thought.

…

Her mind is running a million miles an hour. She can’t get it to stop going over every detail of her minute-long conversation with Hope.

The clock keeps yelling at her to go to sleep, or she’ll regret it at practice tomorrow.

It’s like Hope wants to be friends with Kelley again, in one way or another, and Kelley has no idea how that could ever work out.

There is too much history between them and too many left over feelings, at least on Kelley’s side, to be able to just start fresh.

She tries to push these thoughts out of her mind and wills herself to go to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The 3-0 victory against Ireland feels good. Kelley got subbed in after the half for Mittsy and put her training to good work. She feels good, finally getting some pay off for all the hard work she has put in.

The game was fast-paced but the opponent was not as challenging as Kelley had hoped. She wanted to fight to the death for this win, since those games always felt great. But she’d take a win over a lose any day.

The team wants to go a club to celebrate the win and get rid of their remaining energy.

Alex is the one to convince her to come and just relax, promising not to try to get Kelley to drink anything.  She puts Kelley into a casual outfit and drags both her and Tobin down to the lobby where the team is waiting.

Alex walks up to Abby and Hope to chat while waiting for the cabs to come, not noticing that Kelley moves away to talk to another group.

…

“Not in the mood to party tonight?” Tobin grabs the seat next to Kelley in the team booth.

“Yeah, just not feeling it tonight. I wanna relax more than anything.” Kelley takes the last sip from her beer, finishing it off. “You and Alex look like you’re having fun.”

“Oh shut up. I’m going back out there. You good?”

“Oh yeah. I’m gonna go grab another beer actually.”

Kelley glances at all her teammates as she walks to the bar. Pinoe, Mittsy and HAO are having a dance off in the middle of the dance floor while Abby and Pearcie are facing off on the pool table.

God…she loves this team more than anything, her cheeks are stretched from her joy. Until she runs into someone.

Hope.

She seems to be a bit tipsy, which is abnormal for Hope; she isn’t much of a drinker. Kelley doesn’t fully smell the alcohol on her breath until Hope opens her mouth.

“Do ya wanna dance?” Hope makes a motion with her arm towards the dance floor and takes a stubbing step forward into Kelleys’ personal space.

Kelley takes a step backwards. Putting space between the two of them.

“Hope, have you been drinking?” She asks even though she already knows the answer.

“Maybe just a little bit, not too much. Why babe?” Hope slings an arm around Kelleys shoulders, dragging her closer.

“Hope, Hope. I need you to leave me alone. Now,” Kelley pushes Hope back and away from her. “You made your choice. You chose him and not me. You can’t just come back and act like anything is going to be the same.”

Hope looks like she just got slapped in the face. She seems to be sobering her because her eyes start to show a realization of what just happened, and what she just did.

Before Hope can get a word out to apologize, or not apologize, Kelley has sped out of the bar and back to the hotel.

…

Kelley avoids Hope even more than before. She continues to push herself hard every practice and make sure that she is doing everything she can for the team. She can tell that people are starting to realize something is up.

Hope has started to act very happy and cheerful which is completely out of hr character. No one questions either of them. They all keep their distance because Hope, under the cheerfulness, looks as if she will snap the neck of anyone who approaches her.

Meanwhile, Kelley looks like she is going to have a break down if anyone tries to ask her what is going on.  She looks like she is about to fall apart.

Confused, the team just leaves both of them alone and lets them prepare for the upcoming match.

…

They win the next game by 2 and Kelley wants to celebrate with her teammates. She doesn’t want to be careful about what’s going on with Hope. She doesn’t want to have to watch the way she is acting or what she is doing

Sydney slides up next to her and hands her a shot, giving her a look that says she better take it.

Kelley knocks it back and asks for another, making Sydney cheer.

Before she knows it, she’s drunk. Not drunk enough to throw up, but drunk enough to want to dance.

She joins Alex and Pinoe on the dance floor; she forgets about Hope. She forgets that her life is holding on by a thread, and just lets loose.

Someone starts dancing up against her, looping their hands around her waist. Kelley thinks it’s Alex, or even Sydney, but when she opens her eyes both of them are dancing in front of her.

“Shit.” Kelley turns around to see who she is dancing with. It turns out to be a tall, attractive red head. She can work with that.  

Getting pulled closer to this woman, she starts to dance again, getting into the music. Her body is burning with a sensation she hasn’t felt in a long time. She doesn’t want it to stop, ever.

Glancing at her dancing partner she sees that she is enjoying this just as much. And that her eyes are a bright bluish green. Just like Hope’s.

 _Hope, shit what if Hope sees me dancing with this woman?_ Kelley starts to pull away only to be tugged back closer than before. She feels the woman’s lips join hers and they start to kiss.

All previous thoughts of what’s-her-face vanish and she lets herself fall into the embrace.

It lasts for what feels like forever before they get roughly separated.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hope glares at the woman, getting her to leave, while directing the question at Kelley.

“I’m enjoying myself, what do you think I’m doing?” Her partner has disappeared, leaving the two of them alone on the dance floor. “What the hell are you doing? You can’t just come and interrupt us.”

Kelley shoves Hope away from her, trying to keep her personal space. “You don’t have the right to do this, you know? _You_ don’t get to be jealous. You don’t get to act like I’m still yours. Because I’m not. I’m fucking not.”

Kelley’s face is completely red, her arms crossed and eyes sharp. She isn’t going to let Hope get away with this.

Hope doesn’t say anything and just steps so that her crossed arms are pressed against Hope’s torso. She makes the mistake of glancing at the keeper’s lips, pretty much giving her the okay to lean in.

Her whole body is on fire now. She thought she felt alive when she was dancing, but she understands that she was wrong. Now she feels alive.

But it happens again.  She gets pulled back by someone getting in between the two.

It’s a slap in the face and she sobers up quickly. Tobin has separated them and is glaring at Hope – Kelley isn’t sober enough to realize how unusual that sight is, so she just turns to look at Hope.

“Fuck you. Stay the fuck away from me,” Hope sounds dangerously scary causing Tobin to flinch at her words.

Kelley storms out of the bar.


	4. Chapter 4

Her alarm won’t stop going off, but she is way too hungover to get up and turn it off. That is until she remembers what happened last night and shoots up out of bed.  
She runs through what happened and figures out why she was so upset. Somehow, she feels bad about going off at Hope. She knows that she was right. And that Hope had no right to do what she did. But she still feels bad.  
Kelley also feels embarrassed. She feels embarrassed that she did what she did in front of her team. She feels embarrassed that Tobin had to come and separate them before anything happened.  
She’s most embarrassed by the fact that it made her feel more alive than she had in a very long time, and she secretly hopes that it will happen again.  
“Well, look who’s up,” Alex walks out of the bathroom with her shower bag in hand, scaring Kelley out of her thoughts.  
“Shit, I forgot that I had a roommate for a second,” she tries to keep the conversation light and not go where she knows Alex wants it to go. “Hey, I’m gonna jump in the shower, then we can go down to breakfast together. Sound good?”  
She runs past Alex before she can get a word in edgewise and slams the door.  
Breathe, Kelley. Just breathe, and pretend everything is okay. You can do this.  
…  
Alex doesn’t bring it up until they are in the elevator on their way down to breakfast – when Kelley can’t escape.  
“So what happened last night?” Her eyes tell Kelley that she is going to get an answer, no matter what she has to do. So she swallows her pride and talks.  
“I got drunk and danced and had fun for the first time in a while. And then Hope came and ruined it. But then she got really close to me. And it felt great but it felt horrible. And now I feel like I did something wrong, but I know I didn’t. I don’t know what to do now.” She doesn’t even know if Alex understands, but it feels good to get it out.  
Alex opens her mouth to respond, but before a sound can come out, the elevator doors open at the lobby. Abby was waiting to go back up to her room, so they send her a smile as they get out, and head to the breakfast area.  
“Kelley, I don’t really know what to say to make you feel better, but I just want to remind you that I’m here when you need me,” Alex stops right outside the entrance to the eating area and gives her hand a squeeze and a light smile that lifts up Kelley’s spirits a little.  
…  
She decides that the best plan of action is to avoid Hope. To avoid Hope and stay quiet. Kelley knows that some of her teammates are shooting her weird looks because none of them have ever seen her this quiet before. Ever. But she just tries to ignore it and focus even more on playing.  
She seems to have lost her stride. Her passes have not been on target and her shots haven’t been making it close to the goal. All her hard work these past few weeks has gone down the drain because of one keeper who, ironically, is doing better than she has this whole camp.  
Hope seems to be exceeding when Kelley is slacking, and it pisses her off to no end. It feels like a slap in the face. Like she is trying to show Kelley that she can separate her personal life from her work. Which she is very good at, but that’s not the point.  
Kelley is done with all this tension and tiptoeing around each other unless one of them is drunk. She just wants Hope to grow up and talk to her about this.  
Little does she know, Hope is thinking the same.  
…  
After the next game the team decides to have night in; they don’t want to go out when they are all leaving to go home the next day. They just want to spend time together and relax – they decide that dinner and a movie is the best choice for all of them. Except for Kelley.  
Kelley does not want to go out to dinner with the team, and after being forced to do exactly that by Alex, she is definitely not in the mood to watch Bend it Like Beckham with the team in the conference room.  
Team bonding night meant the whole team will be there. Kelley has already used all of her strength to completely avoid Hope’s glances and questions asked at dinner. Now she is just exhausted.  
But she lets Alex and Sydney happily drag her with the rest of the team, their reasoning being, “This stormy weather is perfect for a movie night!”  
Kelley finally succumbs to their peer pressure when the sound of booming thunder makes her flinch.  
“Fine, but only for a little bit. I have to pack for my trip tomorrow,” she huffs and grabs some popcorn to help her push through these hard times--watching a soccer movie with the team. With Hope sitting in the row in front of her.  
One, no two seats to the right.  
Kelley doesn’t mind having people around with this storm going on; she never liked thunder when she was young.  
But she couldn’t keep her focus on the movie, her eyes blurring over with her all efforts going to get herself to not look over at Hope.  
She knows if she looks at Hope, her green eyes are going to pull her in and she isn’t going to be able to resist.  
…  
Half way through the movie she can’t take it anymore. Hope won’t stop looking at her and Kelley needs some air.  
She quickly whispers to Alex that she is going to go upstairs to pack before the HAO shushes her.  
She leans against the wall once she is out of the room, and tries to catch her breath before she goes upstairs.  
The sound of the pouring rain calms her until it’s interrupted by a loud crash of thunder and a bright flash of light through the lobby windows.  
Kelley lets out a little shriek, quickly covering her mouth. She hopes that none of her teammates had heard the shrill noise she made and rushes off towards the elevator.  
Waiting for the elevator reminds her of why she had to leave the room in the first place; it made her wring her hands together and glance around the lobby bringing back her anxiety.  
Her eyes ran over a tall woman with brown hair walking towards her, then her eyes met with the tall, brown haired womans eyes. Hope was stalking towards her and her only escape was the opening elevator and praying that it would close in time.  
After repeatedly pressing the door close button, the doors finally started to close. Kelley closed her eyes, breathing out a sigh of relief.  
The elevator started to let out a high pitch beep causing her eyes to speed open.  
Someone had stuck their arm into the doors halting their movement, allowing them to push through the doors.


	5. Chapter 5

The arm happened to belong to Hope. Now Kelley and Hope were in an elevator together, standing in complete silence. Neither of them makes a sound until a loud crash of thunder happens and the lights go out.  
Kelley lets out a squeal so it takes her a moment to realize that the elevator has stopped moving, and the two of them seem to be stuck together until someone comes to fix it.  
Neither of them says a word for sometime; they shift awkwardly around each other trying not to make eye contact.   
Kelley doesn’t start to feel claustrophobic until they’re stuck for about a minute, but then it hits her all at once. She falls to the floor, her head in her hands and starts sobbing uncontrollably. Hope immediately rushes to her side to help comfort her and see if everything is okay, but that just makes Kelley cry harder.  
The only thing Hope can think of to get Kelley to calm down if just talk to her like she normally would, as if they were carrying out a conversation. She decides that now is the perfect time to explain to her what is going on between her an Jeremy.  
She starts from the beginning, telling Kelley about how she was so conflicted between choosing to be with her – someone she truly loved – or being with Jeremy – someone she could be with without any drama or pressure from the media. She tells Kelley that she wasn’t strong enough to choose her. She wasn’t ready to put herself out in the public eye to get hurt; she wasn’t ready to let her walls down for her to be able to get hurt. So she had chose Jeremy, someone who made her happy. Made her feel safe and at home. Someone that loved her with all of his heart, but it wasn’t enough for Hope. She tells Kelley that after seeing her at the wedding, all dressed up and looking absolutely stunning she knew that it just wasn’t going to work out with Jeremy.  
Hope talks about how she had filled for divorce before she left for camp, but didn’t get a chance to finish the logistics of the whole ordeal so she didn’t want to talk about it with one. Kelley has stopped crying at this point and is just quietly listening to Hopes’ story, entranced with what she is hearing.   
Hope finishes her story, telling Kelley that the divorce was finalized just last night.  
Kelley doesn’t say anything or move a muscle. She looks shocked, stunned into silence.   
“Say something Kell.” Hope kneels down next to her, snapping in front of her face.   
“Wow. Just wow.” Kelley pushes off the ground to drag Hope into a tight hug, burying her face into her neck. Kelley pulls back, opening her mouth to say something. Before she gets a chance the elevator starts to move again and the doors open up on the teams floor.  
Kelley gives Hope a quick kiss on the cheek before walking towards her room. Looking over her shoulder she says, “We can talk more about this tomorrow, okay?”  
Hope just nods, and watches Kelley disappear into her room, with a smile on her face.  
…  
The next day Hope wakes up to a new text message from Kelley.  
2:35am Kelley – I miss you too.  
She smiles to herself and starts to get ready for the day.


End file.
